Government to go digital in 2nd phase of immunization programme

The two main challenges facing health sector are lack of manpower and monitoring of quality of medical education, the Minister noted.NEW DELHI: The government plans to go digital while ramping up its ambitious national immunization programme. Encouraged with the coverage achieved during the first phase of ‘Mission Indradhanush’, the Centre is now set to commence the second phase of the immunization drive, which will cover 352 districts starting October 7.

The health ministry is planning to adopt technology, including tablets and apps, to assist healthcare workers for regular updates on coverage during this phase.

Launching the second phase of 'Mission Indradhanush', Union Health Minister J P Nadda interacted with state health ministers and department secretaries through video-conferencing to enquire about their preparedness, and said his ministry aims to achieve full immunisation of more than 90% children by 2020.

The idea is to fully immunize more than 89 lakh children who are either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. The mission aims to immunise them against seven life-threatening but vaccine-preventable diseases -- diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, tuberculosis, polio, measles and hepatitis-B.

In the second phase, the ministry plans to cover 352 districts including 279 mid-priority districts, 33 from north-eastern states and 40 districts from the phase one where large number of missed-out children were detected.

Nadda said this phase aims to cover all children below 2 years of age and pregnant women with full immunisation against seven vaccine-preventable diseases.

Providing digital assistance to health care workers and auxiliary mid-wives would help the government keep a track of the coverage and ramp up the programme on a real time basis based on the feedback, an official said.

“In Phase-I, we have managed to vaccinate 75 lakh children. Twenty lakh have been fully vaccinated. The methodology was robust, our micro plans worked,” the official said, adding the ministry is now trying to address the challenges which were faced during the first phase to achieve better in the next one.

The first round of the first phase started from April 7, 2015 on World health Day in 201 high focus districts in 28 states and carried for more than a week.

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A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao passed the order while acting on a PIL filed by Delhi-based dermatologist Zaheer Ahmed who complained that lakhs of medicines were being sold on the internet every day without much regulation, posing a huge risk to patients and doctors alike.